It wasn’t without controversy that the latest act in the post-Wardrobe Malfunction era of Super Bowl halftime shows was Madonna. She’s never been the most wholesome person in the world but now that she’s well past 50, she’s not only relatively harmless compared to the past, she’s relative irrelevant. However, the NFL went through a long list of performers before finally settling on Madonna as the best option for the Super Bowl.

After the jump, we have all 46 proposed act for the Super Bowl XLVI half-time show and why they were dropped.

#1 Christina Aguilera
Reason for Rejection: Has a tendency to forget the words to songs in front of large crowds. Commissioner Goodell would fine and/or suspend her for her repeated public intoxication incidents prior to the Super Bowl.

#2 Rihanna
Reason for Rejection: Wears less clothes during her performances than the strippers/prostitutes that frequented the infamous Dallas Cowboys White House.

#3 Nickelback
Reason for Rejection: If you thought Detroit took the Nickelback performance at the Thanksgiving game badly, what do you think 100 million potential viewers would have to say about the worst rock band of this generation?

#4 Lady Gaga
Reason for Rejection: It would be difficult to wheel the required giant hatching football into the stadium for the show. Also, there would only be time for one-and-a-half songs after factoring in time for the required costume changes and other ridiculous theatrics.

#5 Maroon 5
Reason for Rejection: The Society for Provention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) protested on the grounds that Adam Levine’s high-pitched voice causes damage to dogs’ hearing. They omitted the damage caused to human hearing. Also, the NFL wouldn’t let Levine make-out with random cheerleaders on stage during the performance.

#6 Chris Brown
Reason for Rejection: You couldn’t let him near the cheerleaders either but for completely different reasons than Adam Levine.

#7 Wiz Khalifa
Reason for Rejection: The Steelers didn’t make the Super Bowl so the team his Black and Yellow song is about isn’t be playing. That and Super Bowl halftime shows are generally longer than one song.

#8 Lana Del Ray
Reason for Rejection: Did you see her SNL performance? It wasn’t as horrible as everyone said it was but I definitely wouldn’t ask her to do another live performance any time soon.

#9 Tony Romo
Reason for Rejection: While he’s probably the most frequent singer in the NFL, it just wouldn’t be on the up and up to have the Dallas Cowboys quarterback play the Super Bowl halftime show. However, playing the halftime show would be the closest Romo would ever get to playing in the Super Bowl.

#10 50 Cent
Reason for Rejection: We don’t need Plaxico’s source of inspiration giving anyone else ideas about getting shot. Not that the NFL has a problem with firearms in their locker rooms. It’s not the NBA.

#11 Blue Ivy Carter
Reason for Rejection: Beyonce and Jay-Z’s kid was charging too much for a performance fee and the NFL would lose money on the show.

#12 Pitbull
Reason for Rejection: His music is so bad that it causes concussions and/or his music is so bad that it makes people self-inflict concussions so they don’t remember hearing his awful music. The product placement in his songs’ lyric also conflict with existing NFL sponsorship deals.

#13 Taylor Swift
Reason for Rejection: Needs to have a high-profile tabloid/PR romance with an NFL player and break up with him in order to be inspired to write a song about football. She also disappears from the public radar unless she’s dating someone for PR purposes.

#14 LMFAO
Reason for Rejection: You can’t have a band encourage shuffling because if the o-lines start shuffling, then we’re going to spend the second half wading through endless false start penalties. Also, they wouldn’t be able to show up in Speedos like the Sexy And I Know It video. No one wants to see that and the only people allowed to show that much skin on a football field are cheerleaders and Ed Hochuli.

#15 Tim Tebow
Reason for Rejection: Tim Tebow has three things going for him: 1) He’s a wholesome role model; 2) He sings; and 3) He won’t do anything to get the NFL and NBC in trouble with the FCC. Unfortunately, he falls afoul of the Romo rule. No NFL quarterback that’s never going to make the Super Bowl as the starting QB doesn’t get to the Super Bowl by playing the halftime show.

#16 The Lonely Island
Reason for Rejection: The FCC would require too much censorship to make them any fun. That and I don’t think that the Minnesota Vikings would appreciate the humour of a setlist that had I’m On A Boat followed by I Just Had Sex.

#17 Justin Bieber
Reason for Rejection: Needs to be out of high school for three years to be eligible to be drafted by the NFL for the halftime show. Also, his halftime show would only last for 30 seconds.

#18 Selena Gomez
Reason for Rejection: There would be something awkward about watching a 20-minute halftime show consisting largely of Justin Bieber groping his girlfriend.

#19 Miley Cyrus
Reason for Rejection: The last time they had someone who was formerly affiliated with Disney on the Super Bowl halftime show, Janet’s right breast was seen live by 90-ish million viewers. While I’m sure most guys wouldn’t complain if the same happened with ex-Disney star Miley Cyrus, I don’t think the NFL would chance it. That and you’d have to listen to 15 minutes of Miley Cyrus to get to the pay-off and I’m not sure any mortal could do that.

#20 Lindsay Lohan
Reason for Rejection: I don’t think she’d be able to pass one a league mandated drug test. Hell, how often has she passed one of her court mandated drug tests?

#21 Aerosmith
Reason for Rejection: Did you listen to Steven Tyler sing the Star Spangled Banner before the AFC Championship game? I don’t think you can bounce back that quickly from such a poor performance. And did anyone actually buy a copy of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith at full price? My copy (which has never been opened) was thrown in with the purchase of another game.

#22 U2
Reason for Rejection: Their tour stage is absolutely massive. There’s no way it could be setup during a commercial break to be ready for a halftime show. The stage also forced the replacement of the turf at Spartan Stadium before they could play a game there. The halftime show would also be the world’s longest charity infomercial if Bono got his way.

#23 Gwyneth Paltrow
Reason for Rejection: If you’re going to have chef sing at the Super Bowl, it should be one who can at least sing and/or cook like Canadian legend Pasquale Carpino who can actually do both.

#24 Jennifer Lopez
Reason for Rejection: She has multiple conflict of interest. She’s a part-owner of the Miami Dolphins, though that’s the least of her issues because the Dolphins won’t be close to the Super Bowl for some years. She’s also a compensated endorser of Fiat while the official car sponsor of the NFL is General Motors. And, most importantly, there isn’t a door wide enough at Lucas Oil Stadium to fit J. Lo’s ass through.

#25 Ke$ha
Reason for Rejection: Remember her? She was famous for five minutes in 2010 and then disappeared off the face of the earth. If you’re a flash in the pan, I don’t think you qualify for a high-profile show. That and I don’t think that modern live autotuning software could handle the work they would have to do.

#26 Katy Perry
Reason for Rejection: In Goodell’s NFL, making a bad decision gets you a suspension. Therefore, marrying a noted drug/sex-addict who has a fondness for wheelchair porn is probably worth six games from the Commish (four with good behaviour).

#27 Rebecca Black
Reason for Rejection: The Super Bowl is on a Sunday. If they played the game on a Friday, she probably would have been the first choice.

#28 Nicki Minaj
Reason for Rejection: She has one top ten song with her as the lead artist while she’s featured on five other top ten singles. In fact, her song library as a featuring artist is bigger than songs under her name. It would cost an arm and a leg to get the dozen or so big names needed to get her through a twenty-minute set. Not that a sane person would want to listen to twenty minutes of someone who’s more style than substance.

#29 Adele
Reason for Rejection: According to Twitter, she died last weekend. Okay, Twitter kills off everyone when you’ve made it so that doesn’t mean anything. But Adele is at the top of her game right now so she clearly doesn’t meet the criteria to do the halftime show.

#30 Britney Spears
Reason for Rejection: Recent Super Bowl halftime show booking procedures state that they can’t hire artists whose best years are less than 20 years ago. Therefore, we still have to wait about 7 years before Britney can do the Super Bowl. That’s assuming you call her 1999 debut album Baby One More Time her best work. In which case, she could actually qualify based on her Mickey Mouse Club work.

#31 Shakira
Reason for Rejection: The only people allowed to shake their ass on the football field are the cheerleaders and Victor Cruz during his touchdown dance.

#32 Hugh Laurie
Reason for Rejection: While Dr. House does in fact sing the blues and has even released an album, I don’t think he’s quite right for the Super Bowl halftime show. Most of that would stem from viewers saying “He’s British?” Yes, he is. He’s a very good British comic who happened to get a big break as a cantankerous American doctor. Not that Americans can be bothered with the facts.

#33 Javier Colon
Reason for Rejection: Who? Exactly. Colon was the winner of the first season of NBC’s The Voice which was the only show they’ve launched in the last five years that has viewership in the double-digits of millions. (I have no idea if that’s actually true but it sure feels that way.) Anyway, in order to sing in the Super Bowl halftime show, you have to be relatively widely known. I’m not even sure the 10 million people who regularly watched The Voice would know that Colon won.

#34 Scotty McCreery
Reason for Rejection: Another person that makes you go “who?” McCreery was the winner of the 2011 season of American Idol. He immediately joined the list of American Idol winners who have disappeared from the face of the Earth and returned to the same anonymous life they led before Idol. Sure it’s only been eight months since he won but Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood made a far bigger slash in that short a time frame.

#35 Chris Berman
Reason for Rejection: Don’t say that the ESPN host (because I can’t call him an analyst) doesn’t sing because he gives it a try in a commercial with Kelly Clarkson. Fortunately, we can’t hear him. If you look at him during the ad, it’s clear he either can’t sing or just can’t carry a tune. That and he might leave in a huff if someone shows up to the Super Bowl wearing leather. He didn’t seem too happy about “You’re with me, leather” becoming public knowledge.

#36 Herman Cain
Reason for Rejection: The Hermanator just has one of those voices that could be great if he tried to make it as a professional singer. And he does do a bit of singing like at the Colbert rally in South Carolina. There’s two drawbacks: 1) Papa John wouldn’t want the Godfather at an event he’s poured a lot of money into, and 2) He’d sexually harass most of the cheerleaders.

#37 Drake
Reason for Rejection: While Drake is good enough for the NHL All-Star Game in Ottawa, he just isn’t big enough to do the biggest TV broadcast of the year. And, really, who wants the NHL’s sloppy seconds?

#38 Jason DeRulo
Reason for Rejection: The NFL is trying to cut down on head and neck injuries and hiring him wouldn’t help out the statistics… Too soon?

#39 Limp Bizkit
Reason for Rejection: For about five minutes, Limp Bizkit was a reasonably popular band. They weren’t a regular at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 but they were near the top of the Alt Rock listings from 1999 to 2001. Then we all realized how much we hated Fred Durst and wanted him to go away. And away he and Limp Bizkit went. At least the NFL doesn’t hate its fans so much as to bring Durst back from the boonies of musical fame.

#40 Dolly Parton
Reason for Rejection: If you are one of those uptight people offended by Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction, a Dolly Parton wardrobe malfunction would be a million times worse. If you enjoyed Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction, you’ll have nightmares of Dolly’s 66-year-old silicone DDs.

#41 Jeffster
Reason for Rejection: I think Jeffster would actually do a pretty decent job at the Super Bowl given their experience with live performances and pyrotechnics. However, I don’t know if they’re big enough outside Burbank for them to qualify for the Super Bowl. Maybe if LA ever gets to host the big game…

#42 NKOTBSB
Reason for Rejection: Both New Kids On The Block and Backstreet Boys were big bands back in the day. But that was back in the day. Now each band has to join forces in order to get anyone to buy tickets to one of their concerts. Also, there are nine of them in the combined band. I’m not sure the state of Indiana has enough space to hold their combined egos.

#43 Kim Kardashian
Reason for Rejection: When asked what she thought a visit to the Super Bowl winning team’s locker room would entail, she replied “speed dating.”

#44 Barack Obama
Reason for Rejection: Yes, he does sing and he isn’t even that bad at it. However, the NFL’s best get paid enough that they don’t want a Democrat at the game who would want to repeal the Bush tax cuts for the one-percenters. That and the GOP would want an equal rebuttal time where they can say dumb things that have no factual basis but morons would believe anyway. We can’t risk giving the Republicans their equal time opportunity.

#45 Bjork
Reason for Rejection: She’s clinically insane. I know she’s Icelandic but does anything that she says or does make sense to anybody?

#46 Janet Jackson
Reason for Rejection: Do you really need to ask why?